Entrepreneurial spark a mystery

Small business operators obviously don’t spring from nowhere fully formed at 25 or 35 or 55 years of age. One thing that has long fascinated Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia executive director
Peter Strong
is just where they come from.

“I’ve always been interested in small business in schools," says Strong, a small business operator himself – who managed a couple of sales while talking to the Weekend AFR on the phone.

“Schools are good at encouraging and tracking students moving into professions, trades, they can tell you who wants to be a doctor, who went on to be a lawyer, what their courses are. But what about small business?"

COSBOA has done some preliminary research into the subject. Strong recalls encountering one 15-year-old who had already decided what he wanted to do – run a hardware shop. “The kid just loved it, he knew a lot," he says.

One young woman was babysitting to earn pocket money. But unlike most, she was extremely entrepreneurial. “She’d worked out her own advertising campaign, she had flyers, ads in the local paper," Strong says. “And she had different rates, for in town or out of town. She had a very smart little operation."

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John Powell, general manager, local business banking in NSW, for
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
says small business is traditionally started by tradespeople beginning to expand, or salaried people buying a franchises.

Increasingly, modern technology has allowed a new generation, who in the past would have had to work from the confines of a major organisation, to set up on their own.

“They can have their own office somewhere, suiting their lifestyle," Powell says.

And even if they run a lingerie boutique in a small town, they can serve clients in Laos.